You can check the status of replciation using the DFSRDIAG command, but if you're on a windows 2008 server, be careful to run this as Administrator otherwise you'll get an error "[ERROR] Access is denied when connecting to WMI services".
What process is running on the open port: Tracking down which process identifier (PID) has a port open is quite easy when netstat is run with the -a -n -o combination of parameters
A useful article explaining the netstat command parameters, especially the example I'm always looking for which shows the process name.
Make sure you remove the TTY / serial devices which are automatically created.
These are class as mapped host devices but unlike a mapped host cd drive, they cannot be disconnected without powering off the new VM.
As a result you can't vMotion the new VM and hence it stops DRS from being able to migrate the VM and also you can't put the host into maintenance mode (such as during a host update patch process)
By default even if you have multiple paths from VMWare to your storage, it will use an active/passive configuration, usually meaning that you'll have a 1Gb/s bottleneck (unless you're fortunate enough to be using 10Gb/s networking.
To change the policy in older versions of VMware, you updated the properties of each volume on each server and changed the drop down to the value you want (usually Round Robin). The change was instantaneous meaning a misclick of the list actually changed the value.
In ESX 4.1 this behaviour has been changed by adding a button next to the drop down. You need to make sure you click this button for the change to be applied, otherwise you'll be wasting your time.
Thankfully microsoft in their wisdom have made the process simpler since the release of Vista, by incorporating sysprep into the OS installation as standard. Assuming you've deployed windows to the default directory you'll find the tools in c:\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe
The options are also much simplified, with the option of "Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE)" in combination with the "Generalise" tickbox giving the required options for cloning the system.
ITAssistant often seems to give unknown status to servers for no apparent reason. The usual fix for this is just to refresh the inventory of the unknown servers (annoying but quite quick to do).
However sometimes servers go unknown and won't respond to an inventory, even if you bounce the ITAssistant services or the SNMP services on the remote server.
The first step is to try the troubleshooting tool in ITAssistant...
and run the SNMP connectivity test...
The result should show a list of SNMP agents installed on the server. A healthy Dell Openmanage report will list the OpenManage Server Agent, plus any additional components that were selected (such as storage management.
If the OpenManage SNMP agent isn't showing you'll probably only see a couple of agents.
e.g.
1) A problem server
Connected to the agent software(s) - [broadcom, NA], [mib2, NA]
2) An OK server
Connected to the agent software(s) - [broadcom, NA], [cminventorysnmp, NA], [drac3, NA], [mib2, NA], [OpenManage Server Agent, 5.8.0], [storagemgmt, NA]
This usually requires the unzipped files for the installed service pack and the windows installation CD, so make sure you have the media available
1) Uninstall Dell OpenManage
2) Uninstall SNMP
3) Reinstall SNMP
4) Reinstall Dell OpenManage
Finally go back into ITAssistant and re-run the troubleshooting tool to make sure you get the full SNMP output for OpenManage and if this is ok, re-inventory the server in OpenManage and your unknown status should clear.
Of course if you take the opportunity to upgrade OpenManage you may find your firmware is out of date and you get a warning status, but that's a different subject...
The microsoft iSCSI initiator is used to connect to the iSCSI bridge which presents the tape library hardware as a series of targets.
At first glance the first target appears to be duplicated but do not be fooled (like I was). These are actually the first tape drive *and* the robotic library itself.
Once all the devices are logged on, you should see the Robotic library and all the drives in your changer in backup exec although you may need to rerun the device detection wizard in BE first.
